The TT&S Razor Square Man of the Year

Chapter 98

As the end of the year and Yuletide celebrations draw ever closer, (and the Mayan Apocalypse has come and gone,) it's time for Mr Thompson's Ties & Squares to announce the yearly recipient of its 2nd Annual

2012 Razor Square Man of the Year!

The man who wins this lofty prize must meet three standards -- 1) he must have been in the public eye for the previous year, 2) he must be a consistent wearer of pocket squares, and 3) he must be a benchmark of good taste and judgement that men would do well to emulate.

The TT&S Judges have selected two men as our finalists, each of whom, co-incidentally, inhabit opposite ends of the fashion scale. So without further ado, we shall begin with the runner-up:

Steve Harvey (born January 17, 1957) was the son of a coal miner, born in Welch, West Virginia. (The tiny seat of McDowell County, five miles from Coalwood -- familiar names to anyone who has seen the movie October Sky!) He graduated from Glenville High School in Cleveland, Ohio in 1974, and was an Omega Psi Phi at Kent State and WVU. He has been a boxer, mailman, and insurance salesman, but his worldwide fame has been as a comedian.

A versatile actor with a natural stage presence, he has appeared on the big and small screens, currently hosting the Family Feud game show, and his self-named daytime talk show and morning radio programs. He is also a best-selling author, and lives in Chicago with his wife and four of his children. A philanthropist, Steve and his wife also operate the Steve and Marjorie Harvey Foundation.

Steve is well-known for being a snappy dresser, and an enduring element of his wardrobe are his marvelous variety of pocket squares. Steve is a tall, broad man, standing six-foot-two, and his Balthus-knotted ties, spread collars, broad lapels, and florid squares fit both his size and his personality. His squares are not for the faint of heart: often dual-sided or edged in a contrasting color, they are fashion-forward explosions of exuberance bursting forth from his pocket in a loose, silky pouf. Do not be fooled into thinking his squares are carelessly stuffed -- rest assured these casual artworks are carefully arranged to give exactly the right aesthetic impression.

But Steve has been edged out this year, by a man who nearly made the grade last year -- his squares are a study in exactitude and restraint, less florid than Steve's, but no less remarkable for that. Gentlemen, I present this year's winner:

Bret Baier was born August 4, 1970 in Rumson, New Jersey, and moved to Atlanta, Georgia when he was 10. He attended Marist High School, a small Catholic school in Atlanta, class of '88, and was a Sigma Chi at DePauw University in Greencastle, Indiana, where he double-majored in Political Science and English and graduated in 1992. His first job out of college was at a television station in Beaufort, South Carolina, until 1996 and then in Raleigh, North Carolina until 1998, when he was hired as Fox News' Atlanta bureau chief. After covering the attack on the Pentagon on 9/11, he was made Fox's Pentagon correspondent.
He met his wife Amy on a blind date in Washington, D.C., at a Rolling Stones Concert. They married in October 2004 and now have two sons.

He became the White House correspondent in 2007, and then began substituting for Brit Hume as anchor of Special Report. He took Hume's place as full-time anchor in 2009, and has hosted Special Report since then. Today, most people have seen (or at least heard of) Bret Baier. No wonder; his "tough-but-fair" reputation is well-deserved, and Special Report has been ranked the number one political news program on cable television.

It was this election year that put Baier's pocket squares in front of the world. He anchored Fox's coverage of the 2012 Republican primaries, and moderated five debates among the candidates, including the highest-rated cable news debate in Orlando, Florida. If anyone was paying attention to the election at all, Bret was most likely a part of it.

Bret's tight, neat reporting style, is echoed perfectly in his tight, neat pocket squares. What otherwise would be just another dreary "Reporter Black" suit is brought to life with just a hint of color and design. He is rarely seen without one, and it has not just become his own signature style, but he has influenced his co-respondents to start wearing squares as well. Each square is a small, subtle work of art.

His television folds are perfect vintage, a razor-straight three-eighths inch strip of bright white. His poufs and points are refined, sophisticated and perfectly proportioned. And his color-matching is exquisite, never exactly matching the tie, but with just enough variation in pattern or hue to give the correct visual interest. Often, the news-crawl at the bottom of the screen cuts him off at the chest, so the square isn't always readily apparent, leading to some interesting "spot-the-square" drinking games. In short, his aesthetic is perfectly in keeping with that of the Razor Square style, and this year, that gives him the edge that puts him over the top.

So congratulations, Bret Baier, you are the 

Mr Thompson's Ties & Squares 

2012 Razor Square Man of the Year!

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The TT&S Bow Tie Man of the Year

Chapter 97

Another year is nearly behind us, and that means it's time for our own annual awards shows! This week, Mr Thompson's Ties & Squares chooses one man who deserves the accolade of the 2nd Annual

 2012 Bow Tie Man of the Year!

The criteria for our yearly accolade is threefold: 

I. Our Man must be a man in the public eye, who has the attention and influence of a great number of people.

II. He must exemplify the art of the bow tie to a high degree, and 

III. He must, through his example, encourage other men to don bow ties as well.

The selection process has been narrowed down this year to but two men, who co-incidentally, work in very similar fields.

The Runner-up chosen by TT&S this year, is an American chef, editor, publisher, and radio and television personality. His use of bow ties is very nearly a trademark, and has been an example of quietly wearing a bow tie the right way, with no fuss or fanfare, for over a decade.

Christopher Kimball (born June 5, 1951) was raised in Westchester County, New York, and went to Columbia University with a degree in Primitive Art. He went to work with his stepbrother in a publishing company and started taking cooking courses, then got his family to pony up the cash and started Cook’s Magazine in 1980, when he was 29 years old.

Now anyone who has channel-surfed on a Saturday afternoon has probably run across Chris Kimball on PBS, on America's Test Kitchen. If you've stayed your remote control long enough to sit through an entire episode of this dry-sounding show, you're probably hooked already. It's "cooking deconstructed," pared down to its delicious, infinitely repeatable, scientifically foolproof essentials, in a low-budget, minimalist, eminently practical format that is perfectly at home on PBS. This is not an accident: Kimball is the founder, editor, and publisher of Cook's Illustrated as well, which is a minimalist, eminently practical, just-the-facts magazine. Don't mistake its deliberately "downscale" format for a bargain-basement production, though -- America's Test Kitchen draws over two million viewers a week, which is about four times more than almost anything on MSNBC or CNN.

In addition to publishing and editing two magazines, and hosting two cooking shows, Kimball has authored five books, is a columnist for the New York Daily News, has been featured in everything from The New Yorker to the L.A. Times, and is a regular contributor on NPR and The Early Show. In fact, he's nearly everywhere, once you start to look for him...but much like his television programs, he's an unprepossessing fellow, more scientist than showman, and it's easy to miss him on the radar screen of cultural zeitgeist.

But for twelve years, he's been on our television screens, and he's changed very little: a Nor'easter haircut, a Don Knotts-ish expression, round wireframes. And under his red apron: an oxford shirt, sleeves rolled up to the elbow, suspenders, and a bow tie. You would think that attire that never, ever changes would become a uniform, or worse, a costume; as evidenced by fellow PBSers Justin Wilson's red string tie, Roy Underhill's braces, or Bob Ross's fuzzy, fuzzy afro. But Kimball demonstrates that one can wear a bow tie every day, for years on end, and never look out of place. He wears a variety of bows, in differing colors, patterns, and styles, and wears them all unironically and well; although his penchant for a small knot, broad leaved, medium width, lightly lined blue silk pindot clearly shows that he's been around bow ties long enough to know just what style best compliments his morphology -- and his red apron. His approach to bow ties is like his approach to everything else; precision, constancy, and efficiency of thought.

Which brings us to our winner this year. Also in the entertainment industry, also a foodie, but a relative newcomer to the onscreen bow tie. In many ways he is the counterpoint to Chris Kimball's rock-steady, week-in-week-out bows -- but the spark of life and excitement he brings to his neckwear outshines the relatively short time he has been seen in them. 

Alton Brown (born July 30, 1962) is also a television personality, chef, author, actor, and cinematographer. Born in Los Angeles, he graduated from the University of Georgia with a degree in drama. He began his career in cinematography and film production, and a decade later moved to Vermont to train at the New England Culinary Institute in Montpelier. He observed that most cooking shows were too dry and boring for his taste, and he wanted to do something about that.

He is best known as the creator and host of Good Eats, and the host of Iron Chef America. He has also hosted several mini-series and specials on the Food Network, and is the author of ten books of cookery. Although just as science-and-chemistry oriented as Christopher Kimball, his Julia-Child-meets-Mister-Wizard approach, offbeat editing and sharp wit have made him something of the Accidental Rock Star of the food world, and Good Eats has achieved the same sort of cult status among foodies that Monty Python achieved among, well, the people that watch Monty Python.

So what is it that Alton brings to the table? In a word, seasoning. (Sorry: food analogy.) His approach to bow ties is like his approach to everything else; energy, sprezzatura, and insouciance. He knows style, does Alton: and how to use that style. Alton is as notable a Man of Fashion as he is a Man of Culination. Any guy who wants to know how to not just wear a bow tie, but wear clothes and be Dressed Like A Grownup!, would do worse than to study Alton Brown. And I can't think of a higher accolade than that. 

We'll leave with some recent quotes from Alton himself on the subject:

"I like bow ties because you don't get tangled up in them. I'm a man of action." 

"The question isn't why do I wear bow ties, the question is how can you be so uncool as to not wear bow ties?"

“The bow tie also has advantages in the cockpit as it won’t snag in harnesses or headset cables. [Brown is a pilot.] Also, bow ties make me feel just a little bit more like a time lord."

So for all these reasons and so much more, Alton Crawford Brown, 

you are the Mr Thompson's Ties & Squares 

2012 Bow Tie Man of the Year!

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The Scariest Thing I've Seen This Year

Halloween Special

Chapter 90

Cue the theremin music and fire up the fog machines! Our yearly tradition is back -- the worst, most egregious, baddest, most doubleplusungood thing I've had the dire misfortune to witness since, well, since last Halloween.

The most scary thing I've seen this year might have been the image of bloody handprints on a wall of a CIA safe house/U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya -- terrifying horizontal streaks left by four Americans as they were hauled out bodily by a crowd of Islamic terrorists, who murdered them in a mindless orgy of violence, and torched the grounds, on the anniversary of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

That event has led to many scary things I've seen this year; and they look to be shaping into a complex political coverup that would be right at home in a cheap B-thriller horror movie. But our focus here is on Dressing Like A Grownup!, and Islamic terrorists dress as you would expect them, and sheriff's deputies wear their uniforms. So as grisly and stomach-churning as these events were, we have to look elsewhere for a sartorial horrorshow. 

And we have one.

On the 18th of this month, the Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation held its 67th annual dinner at the Waldorf-Astoria in New York. Founded by Francis Cardinal Spellman in 1946, to honor the memory of New York Governor Al Smith, the Foundation is a Catholic charity that assists the neediest children of New York. But the dinner is primarily known for two things: every four years, it hosts the two Presidential nominees, who spend the evening telling jokes. 

And it is a genuine, honest-to-goodness white tie affair. Dress suits, tailcoats, full-formal, whatever you want to call it, it is one of the few occasions that demands the dressiest of traditional clothing, with no short cuts. Most people would not notice what actually went on that evening. Everyone had fun, the candidates were both in rare form and actually blazingly funny, and the money all went to a good cause. So who cares what they looked like, really? After all, there was no red carpet, no paparazzi, no questions of "who were you wearing?" After all, it's just a tailcoat....

...right?

Wrong. Dress suits are the closest thing civilians have to military uniform. It's still party clothes, make no mistake; but there are explicit rules. These rules don't exist to make life needlessly difficult -- they are there because White Tie, done properly, is the ultimate expression of the First Great Secret of Dressing Well: it makes you look better than you really do, all the time, without exception -- if it is done correctly. These two men, vying for the position of head of the most powerful nation in the world, should know a thing or two about dress suits. Neither of them do. Governor Romney, joking about his wealth, said "It's nice to finally relax and wear what Ann and I wear around the house." A good line, but it's apparent that he's never actually worn a dress suit before. And neither has the President. 

It's painfully obvious that no one there has ever worn white tie and tails; because they are all getting it wrong. Coats are baggy, shirts are unstarched, waistcoats are too long. It's as if they were all at a high school dance...or Halloween party. No one knows what the hell they are doing. No one. And that's scary.

The President of the United States is wearing an unstarched fold-collar tuxedo shirt and pre-tied bow with his tailcoat. Which, sadly, is what the waiters would be wearing, to differentiate themselves from the guests, in decades past. Romney is also wearing a tuxedo shirt, with skimpy attached wing collar. His bow tie neckband is riding over the top of his coat collar, and is nearly jumping free of his shirtcollar. If these were fifteen-year old schoolchildren playing dress up with the clothes in their grandfather's steamer trunk it would be merely humorous. These are grown men, and it is nothing short of tragic.

But this brief image is proof that we are witnessing the next Fall of the Roman Empire. Directly behind the President is seated Chris Matthews. I don't even know how to register my complete and utter disgust. This is a full-dress event, and Matthews can't even be bothered to wear trousers? Let this image of low-rise belted pants scorch into your retinas, his shirt billowing out under his waistcoat, his cutaway fronts flapping impotently across his distended belly: this is the image of the tail end of Western civilization. 

Let us now compare this evening of atrocity to images of Presidents past, who have attended this selfsame dinner, wearing the same dress suits, but wearing them correctly. Notice President Reagan's dress suit, and how it is cut across the waist. The trouser waistband is high, the waistcoat is cut to be just shorter than the fronts of the tailcoat, and the angle of both are identical. 

Now observe President Ford's shirtcollar. It is starched, detachable, and much taller than that worn with a dinner suit: a full two and a half inches, with broad, elegant wings, and a broad, elegant bow tie to match it. His pocket square is arranged with nearly Razor Square precision.

Turning our attention to President Nixon, take a close look at the cut of his coat. This is why a dress suit must always be made bespoke. Notice that the sleeve falls without so much as a wrinkle. Notice especially the shaping through the chest and torso, the precision of line, the sculpting of the cutaway that looks molded to his body: the very definition of a body coat. Now compare this to the first picture of Romney above.

Now we'll step back farther, to President Kennedy. The thing to see here, is how the coat acts when in motion. Kennedy is reaching his arm forward, but the coat still holds to the small of his back, the tails follow the curve of his hips, and the cutaway points stay in place like they were welded there. Now look at the other fellow, who has both arms out, one in a handshake, the other on another gent's back: but his coat does not billow out, and stays snug into the waist. Notice, too, that he is starched from chin to navel -- the shirt front and waistcoat are both stiffly starched pique marcella, and neither his shirt nor his waistcoat shows as much as a wrinkle, despite his half-twist forward from the waist. One last detail: the man at the far right is not in a dress suit: he's in a double-breasted dinner suit. Is he a waiter? No, more likely a member of the media; you see, it's perfectly acceptable to wear a dinner suit to a full-dress event if you cannot afford a proper dress suit. (Memo to Chris Matthews.)

How have we descended so far, that at a White Tie dinner with the President of the United States, no one knows how to actually wear White Tie? The answer is, "down a long, gentle slope." White tie isn't difficult -- on the contrary, it is very simple. There is absolutely nothing to cause confusion. Step A, step B, follow the rules, and everything from cut to proportion to size to materials is clearly laid out for you, as simple as a Marine's uniform, and the result is guaranteed to be visual perfection.

Grown men don't know how to wear anything, anymore. Welcome to an era when even statesmen, Presidents, captains of industry, and media professionals can't follow a simple set of directions that have been set in stone for over a century. 

And if that isn't scary, well then I don't know what is.

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Em & Emmy

(The second annual "Best Dressed Man at the Emmys" award)

Chapter 86

It's time for the Emmys, and that means it's time for the Dress Like A Grown-up! critical eye to be cast once again on the Men of Fashion and Influence in tinseltown!

It's been awhile since we've played this game, so for the benefit of our newer followers, let's go over the groundrules.

There are several large Hollywoody awards presentations throughout the year, and each of them has its own shade of formality and elegance. Using the standards that each one sets for itself, we look at what people are wearing, for good or for ill.

We don't care what the women are wearing. Every other blog in the universe is covering all the gowns and dresses, fawning and drooling all over themselves and playing who-wore-it-best games. Not here! We're concerned solely with the gents' evening wear. 

We don't care who made the dinner suits and tuxedos. Cut, finish, style, and panache trumps a label and a designer's ego everytime. So we'll look purely at the execution: the cut, design, style, and wearability.

We don't care how famous these blokes are or what they won. The Emmy awards are nothing but a mutual back-slapping party for television actors, whose sole contribution to society is to be able to repeat words that other people had written for them. It is at best a show of bread and circuses to distract the somnambulent public from much more important and life-changing issues that loom darkly just over the horizon.

This is not intended to be a comprehensive view, as images of male attendees are relatively few and far between, and are covered not at all for their fashion choices. I watch the whole painful affair, so you don't have to: I take notes and pay attention to folk in the audience as well as on stage; and hopefully, some of them get enough lens-time to accommodate our analysis afterward.

We'll look at men on the Red Carpet, just as they arrive for the show. Ideally, this will show the men at their best and freshest of the evening. I will present some examples for our excoriation or exultation, as needed. If necessary, I will alter the contrast and brightness of the images to give a clearer view of the details of the article in question, and we'll conclude with my choice of the Best Dressed Man at the Emmys.

In centuries past, the host of an event set the tone for the standard of formality. Let's test this by looking at Jimmy Kimmel, the host of the evening.

Jimmy is dressed in a dinner suit with details that push it further into the casual spectrum than average. Notice the immaculate tailoring, the pagoda shoulders and roped sleeveheads, the roll of the silk lapels, the amount of waist suppression, and the length of the skirts. All very classic, and very well done. It is worn unbuttoned, with a waistcoat, exactly as it should be.

Now look at the details, that would be more at home with a business suit than a tuxedo: two buttons on the jacket, flapped pockets, and notch lapels that are a touch too insubstantial for a dinner suit. Notice, too, that his five-button waistcoat has a medium crossover, which is a further casual touch. Dinner suit waistcoats should have a lower crossover, three or four close-set buttons, that show more shirtfront. His shirt has an attached fold collar, which is perfectly acceptable for a dinner suit, and the bow tie is elegant. You may not realize this, but Kimmel is walking a razor's edge. The perfect cut of the coat is the only thing that makes this deviation into a business suit acceptable: any less, and it would be "just a black suit," and not a tuxedo. A lesser cut would demand more strict adherence to true evening wear in the details, to achieve the same level of casualness.

Men exist to make women look better at events like this, so it's important that both sides of the gender equation have a certain amount of equivalency. The womens' full-length evening gowns are enough to verify that this is indeed a semi-formal (or undress or black tie) event. The standard for semi-formal evening wear is of course the dinner suit, also called the tuxedo. And Kimmel's tuxedo sets the evening's tone within the dinner suit's spectrum. It's a shame that we have to work backwards to suss out what men need to be wearing like this nowadays -- it used to be that women gauged what they needed to wear, off of the tone that the men set for the event.

This is what happens when the equation is unequal. This is not an interchange of coequals, rather, it is a mother taking her kid to the first day of kindergarten. Nicole Kidman does herself no favors by taking the dominant role and leading Keith Urban forward by the hand, but neither does Urban do his albino amazonian dominatrix any favors by trailing meekly behind with stooped shoulders and pensive expression. His suit reflects that weakness. The small collar and long tie, the cuffs down to his knuckles, the skinny pants that crumple awkwardly over his high-laced boots, all conspire to push him strongly into the background, which rather than emphasizing Kidman, serves to diminishes her.

Compare this to Alec Baldwin, who makes a different grievous error. Apparently he has just come from Hilaria Thomas' prom. Matching your tie to her dress, Alec? Really? This sort of splash-o-color really never works with formal wear. The ill-fitting suit and a long tie just make you look like an insurance salesman. You still have a lot to learn from Jack Donaghy, apparently.

Ben Falcone comes a step closer, but demonstrates yet another error. If your wife, the Breadwinner McCarthy, is willing to go to great lengths and expense to get dresses especially made to fit her, why the hell can't you even hem your own damn pants? It's bad enough that she's married to an Edward Gorey illustration -- you really should take a little effort to make sure you augment her appearance. She's putting in the effort to look incredible; you need to back her up and harmonize with her efforts. I'll give you props for the link-front closure, the black boutonnière, and the bow tie. Well done. But next time, do us all a favor, wear a jacket that fits both your chest and your arms. Wider peak lapels wouldn't hurt. Leave the link in your pocket, hike your pants up, and wear a cummerbund. Melissa will thank you. As will we all. 

Ricky Gervais copies his Golden Globes ensemble from earlier this year, right down to the tacky you-can't-see-me shades and open-collar black shirt. At least the jacket isn't maroon this time. But formalwear, this isn't. Silk lapels on a hacking jacket do not make a Tuxedo. An Englishman should know better.

Oh, Carson, where to start? Are you attending or working as a parking valet? I don't know how you left the house thinking this looked acceptable, so I'll just start you off simple: dinner suits don't have belts.

David Benioff: ditto. It's a rare opportunity for you to be featured on this side of the lens: stop screwing it up. Unless you're trying to be some sort of ironic hipster. In which case, you're still doing it wrong.

Michael Hall has come from a funeral, apparently. An odd choice for a fun occasion. Just 'cuz it's black doesn't mean it's formal!

Kevin Costner, you are responsible for an outbreak of facepalms all over the world right now. Just wanted to let you know.

In every awards show, we're faced with a Man in Black Brigade: guys who really don't get black tie at all, and the nearest they can figure is to wear a black suit with a black long tie. Befuddling, considering what these people do for a living. 

Matthew Perry, Adam Driver, Alex Karpovsky, I can understand. But what is Tom Hanks doing in this lineup? Can this be the same man who was the best dressed at the Oscars earlier this year?

Every year, every awards show, Steve Buschemi comes close but misses the target, and I ridicule him mercilessly. But he's gotten much better. Perhaps he reads Dress Like A Grownup! for hints...but his jacket fits well this time, without his usual gap at the back of the collar. His trousers are still a tad long, pooling instead of breaking cleanly. He's still afraid of the bow tie, though. C'mon, Stevey, go for it. With a bow, this outfit would look really good on you. You're tall, you're thin, you're made to wear stuff like this. Don't fear the bow.

Not even children are immune from bad decisions. This is particularly tragic, because it's not their fault. They're young, they're stupid, and they have highly-paid consultants to make sure they're appropriately dressed. So what happened to Rico Rodriguez? He played an annoyingly large role in the awards this week, so one would think he would be dressed adequately. Nope.

This begs the question: should boys even be dressed in proper evening wear? My answer is NO. Dinner suits are grown-up clothes, and are not for children. That being said, this three-piece suit is a good one, dark grey and quite nice. The primary problem is the tailoring -- it's just far too long in the sleeves and legs. I don't even have a problem with the wingtip spectator shoes: hey, he's a kid, why not? It's cute. An adult couldn't get away with it, though. The black shirt/white tie combo is simply a terrible idea. A simple white shirt and a dark patterned bow tie, worn with the jacket open, would be just the way to go. Rico would look like a mature young man, instead of a small pudgy clown.

This is another example of too-cute-by-half misdressing. Shoes are nice, trousers a bit long, but the wee tux is too precious for a bairn. And the blue body with black sleeves makes Nolan Gould look a bit like a hobbit footman in an oversized service waistcoat.

This is what happens when otherwise well-intentioned people attempt to do things right, but don't understand the basics. Pocket-hockey-playing Evan Peters is giving it the old college try. Shiny shoes, trouser legs better than most, bow tie, even a pocket square. His waistband is what fails him, for he is ignorant of the fact that his shirt should never show below the button-point of his jacket. His hipster low-rise pants show a shocking eight inches of The White Triangle of Doom below the button. Next time, Evan -- taller pants, a low-button jacket, a cummerbund, a waistcoat, anything. 

Same error, Reid Scott. Another member of the pocket-hockey team, his difficulty is exacerbated by the use of a belt. Braces yes; belt no. Another simple rule.

Let's leave the pocket-hockey players, and look at some errors in fit next. Eric Stonestreet is a barrel-chested fellow, and his ill-fitting jacket is both too long in the sleeves, and too tight in the chest. This awkward off-balance train wreck is the unhappy result. It would be no trouble at all for a bespoke tailor to make a dinner jacket with broad shoulders, an athletic shape, and strong lapels that would make Eric look every inch a movie star, instead of an out-of-breath maitre d'. Why does he not? Who knows.

Now let's look at the opposite predicament. Max Greenfield is wearing a tuxedo that, in theory, fits. Everything is at least hemmed and cut to length. No, the problem here is the minisuit styling. The button-point is at his sternum, the skirts at his hips, the lapels twee and insubstantial. Max is a tall enough fellow, but this just makes him look taller and more gangly and out of proportion than he already is. The lesson here is that sometimes, fashion sucks and needs to be ignored. A true Tuxedo in classic proportions is what is called for here.

We've mentioned Peter Dinklage before, and this would seem to be the same suit he wore for the Golden Globes this year. As before, the challenge is cutting a dinner suit to fit his unique physiogomy, without drawing attention to it, as well as being an unmistakably adult suit. For a bespoke tailor, this would present no greater problem than fitting any other man.

This suit's casual characteristics would be more suited for a youth, like Nolan Gould. The excess length in the arms and legs make him appear shorter than he is, and the thin lapels don't harmonize with the shape of his chest. The long tie also shortens his shirtfront visually.

'Twere me, I would recommend a slightly taller shirtcollar with a narrower spread, a proper bow tie, and a dinner suit with generous peaked silk lapels, single-button, with a low-crossover waistcoat, all cut and tailored to within a sixteenth of an inch. That would solve all problems of "scale" that we see here.

We'll finish off with the best of the evening. First, the "worst of the best," was Andy Cohen. Andy looks smashing. It's a great dinner suit, everything fits him, is tailored well, and hits the right classic notes. It is right in line with the tone set by Host Kimmel, by playing the details ever so slightly casual: balmoral shoes, buttons that aren't silk-covered, a lapel that is ever so slightly narrowed, a dashing tie with a bit of velvet contrast, and pleated shirtfronts. And then he has to go blow the whole thing with a blue shirt. Why, Andy, why? A blue boutonniere, a blue pocket square, is all the color you ever needed to introduce. I'm so disappointed in you. Shame, for being so very, very close.

Jimmy Fallon has a long track record of doing black-tie very well, and this was no exception. He was in a very traditionally tailored dinner suit, cut well with an impeccable fit. His trousers fall with no break at all. His tie is rakishly slightly askew. So many of the clueless men who were there that night could learn how to do the basics by simply following his example.

Jim Parsons played it the same as last year's Emmys, with a midnight-blue velvet dinner jacket. It's not the same jacket though: this one is cut better, has flapped pockets, and the lapels are much improved over last year in their shape and breadth. He's sticking with a look that works for him, and he's pulling it off well, and improving over time. Good marks for the lad.

Jon Hamm has learned something from his years on Mad Men, not least of which is how to dress well. Note the proper trousers with the satin outside stripe, and the heavier cashmere that gives everything a nice drape and fall. He's wearing a two-button jacket, which we'll credit to the Tone of the Host...although I'd rather have seen this in a one-button style.

Hamm almost takes the evening for best-dressed, except for three minor --very minor-- details. At this level of perfection, it behooves one to be picky. First, the lapels are quite shiny. The silk would have worked better if it were slightly more matte. Second, the bow tie is wrong for the shape of Hamm's head: the shape of the knot and the rounded ends of the leaves are too small and weak for Jon's jaw and high forehead. I would have gone with a stronger tie, with broad square leaves and a larger knot. And the third is that he does not unfasten his jacket the entire evening. 

Which is especially tragic, because when he does, at the after-party, we find that he has been wearing a waistcoat the entire time! A low-cross four button, no less. It's too bad we didn't see this throughout the evening. It would have made him a lock for best-dressed.

 But he must give up that accolade to Damian Lewis, who hit all the notes, was completely correct, and hit it out of the park. Damian's tuxedo fit, was expertly cut and trimmed, and worn correctly. He was the sole attendee who wore a cummerbund, which was a perfect complement to his draped, shawl-collar dinner jacket. His bow tie was the perfect size and shape. Even the white pocket square was sublime. But, the characteristic that puts him over the top, is the easy, casual insouciance that he exudes. He makes his wife Helen McCrory look better just by virtue of his proximity to her. He's calm, confident, and completely at ease in his clothes, not an awkward boy being led around, buttoned up with his hands crammed in his pockets.

Let's look a little closer at the details. His shirt collar is a deep, broad spread, that matches his bow tie, which has an atypical four inch leaf, which suits him. His shawl lapels are shaped just as they should be, with a beautiful belly and curve, and very matte in sheen. The Edwardian turn-back cuffs are a nice retro nod. His shirtfront is narrowly pleated, which is a good match for the casual nature of the shawl collar. The cummerbund hides the waistband of the trousers, and sits at the jacket's button point. Pop quiz: you get 10 brownie points if you can find what he's doing wrong to accommodate the fit of the jacket. (Roll over and highlight the bars below to see the answer.)

Hint: Look at his shirt buttons. 

Answer: The cummerbund is sitting very low on Damian's waist. Notice his shirt has a blank space where his fourth shirt stud would be. The shirt was designed for either a waistcoat crossover or cummerbund to sit where that fourth button is. So, faced with a choice between a proper cummerbund placement that would appear too high, or a low-rise cummerbund that shows the missing shirt button, he opted for the latter.

But whatever you may think of the "error," (Did you figure it out without peeking?) because of the combination of the use of classic style, traditional details, adherence to the Tone of the Host, proper grooming, and old-school attitude, it gives me no end of joy to announce that 

you, Damian Lewis, win the award for the 

Second Annual Dress Like A Grownup! 

2012 Best-Dressed Man at the Emmys!

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